In Singapore and around the world, there has been increasing emphasis on providing quality care and education to children as governments recognise the importance of investing early in their well-being and development. High quality early childhood care and education services require well-trained and continuously improving educators. Therefore, there is a need to prepare more knowledgeable teacher educators and professional developers within education systems to support teachers’ continued growth and development.
Working with adults (i.e., teachers and leaders) in a childcare centres/kindergarten, however, requires additional knowledge base and skillset that is different from working directly with young children.
The revised Master of Early Childhood Education Programme (MECED) has been designed with special care to meet the needs of experienced educators who aspire to become trainers, mentors, coaches and professional developers within individual childcare centres/kindergartens or within larger organisations that provide early childhood care and education (ECCE) services. As such, the programme blends two distinct yet related bodies of knowledge:
- adult learning theories and pedagogical knowledge, and
- up-to-date child development knowledge to inform early childhood curricular design and pedagogical practices.
The goal of the programme is to support existing professional developers and trainers, as well as enhance curriculum leadership and pedagogical knowledge amongst early childhood educators (teachers and leaders included). The courses in the adult learning component will provide insights into contemporary approaches to engaging adult learners, including blended learning approaches. Additionally, course development and assessment for adult learners as well as emerging trends in adult learning will also be covered. The programme has also broadened its admission criteria to support related educational professionals who need to design training and continuous learning and development opportunities for early childhood educators within ECCE organisations as well as the ECCE sector-at-large.
The relevance of this programme is highly dependent on the real-world problems that you bring to the course instructors. Assignments for many of the ECE courses will allow you to delve into specific curricular topics of your choice, so that you can immediately apply what you have read, discussed, and learned in the courses to your workplace.
Unique Features of the Programme
- Contemporary findings in research on child development and quality ECCE.
- Adult-learning theories/strategies that can be applied to ECCE teacher training and development contexts.
- Application of research-based practices into the design of workshops and courses for early childhood teachers.
- Courses are taught by academics and practitioners with a blend of local and global perspectives.
- Classes are scheduled to suit the needs of working adults, in short bursts of face-to-face seminars and plenty of self-directed learning materials.
- Assignments revolved around real-world teacher/professional development problems and contexts.